Can Esther tame ‘sexist’ Tories... starting with her partner?
TORY MP Esther McVey will be at the centre of the party’s drive to survive the Westminster scandal. As the new Deputy Chief Whip, the former GMTV presenter will be expected to stamp out the sexist attitudes of the party’s more traditionalist MPs.
And she has the perfect partner on whom to practice: fellow Tory MP Philip Davies, regarded as one of the most unreconstructed males in Westminster.
Ms McVey, who was appointed as part of the reshuffle which saw chief whip Gavin Williamson replace scandal-hit Sir Michael Fallon as Defence Secretary, is in a relationship with Mr Davies – a man deemed so ‘sexist’ by feminists, a candidate from the Women’s Equality Party stood against him in the General Election.
Divorced Mr Davies, who is 45 but could pass for a decade older, and Ms McVey – she’s 50 but could pass for a decade younger – have been a feature on the Westminster scene for several years, sharing a flat and attending parties together.
Glamorous Liverpudlian McVey, who won George Osborne’s old seat Tatton in June after two years out of the Commons, will lend a rare dash of glamour to the whips’ office, responsible for enforcing party discipline and ensuring that the Government wins key votes.
She first shot to national renown in 1999 with a glamorous photoshoot and an appearance on the cover of Hello! magazine.
Ms McVey, who became an employment Minister shortly after entering the Commons for Wirral West in 2010, is hugely popular on the Tory right and has been tipped as a future leader. She has remained unmarried because, she said, she had ‘never found anyone to wind her biological clock’.
Mr Davies, however, excels at
‘Feminist zealots want to have their cake and eat it’
winding up the opposite sex. Last year, he was accused of trying to foil a bill against domestic violence in Parliament by speaking for an hour and 20 minutes about how it was ‘sexist against men’, ‘political correctness’ and ‘virtue signalling’.
He also gave a speech at an event for Justice For Men And Boys (J4MB) – an anti-feminist political party – in which he complained about men who pandered to ‘militant feminists’ and ‘zealots’ and criticised the drive for ‘so-called equality’.
He contrasted the campaigns to increase the number of women on company boards and in Parliament with the ‘deafening silence’ over increasing the number of men who have custody of their children.
He also argued that the justice system favours women by sending fewer to prison and not making them wear uniforms.
He said: ‘The feminist zealots really do want women to have their cake and eat it. They fight for their version of equality on all the things that suit women but are quick to point out women need special protections and treatment on other things.’ His remarks led Labour to call for Theresa May to withdraw the whip from Mr Davies on the grounds that ‘he has open contempt for women’ and his views were ‘prehistoric’.
The J4MB party – which issues awards for ‘lying feminist’ and ‘whiny feminist’ of the month – once published an article titled ‘13 reasons women lie about being raped’. Its 2015 Election manifesto suggested men should receive their pension before women because they work harder and die younger.